Black Friday kicking off on Thanksgiving day – if you let it

It’s no big secret that I’m not down with Black Friday. I’ve been promoting Buy Nothing Day for years, hoping that people will spend this holiday time with their family and friends vs. shopping. Sadly, this year Black Friday has gotten even more obnoxious with more and more stores opening even earlier than normal.

Target, among other stores, are opening on Thanksgiving this year so that people can shop early. Super lame. Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder tells CNN that it’s apparently no big deal because, “Target’s opening time was carefully evaluated with our guests, team and the business in mind. Across the country, team member preferences were considered in creating our store staffing schedules. Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest of the year, and we appreciate our Target team’s flexibility on this weekend and throughout the holiday season.”

I’m sure employees love the idea of working on Thanksgiving day.

In truth, some people dislike this idea so much that petitions have started popping up asking stores to stay closed on Thanksgiving so employees can celebrate with their families.

Other stores rumored to be starting their Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving day include Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Kmart, Dollar General, Old Navy, Michaels and more.

Luckily, the Buy Nothing Day movement is still alive and well in America, and you can be a part of it. It’s super easy to participate. Here’s what you do…

Don’t shop on Black Friday.

This year there’s one more issue – don’t shop on Thanksgiving! Seriously. You don’t need to support stores who steal employees away from their families in the name of consumerism.

Easy as pie, which by the way, you’ll have more time to eat if you skip all this shopping madness. There’s many other cool things you could be doing on November 23 besides shopping. Need some ideas? Check out the links below.

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Comments

Ugh. I tweeted Target about how I hate they are opening on Thanksgiving. I hope more people speak out to them so they don’t do this next year too.

I know you don’t shop at Target, but they have a lot of products I like and have started carrying more natural beauty items and organic grocery stuff. But this is dumb. I used to work in retail and it was bad enough that you had to get to work at 6 am the day after Thanksgiving, but I can’t imagine having to work on Thanksgiving day. If they continue to do this, they’ll drive away good employees.

Oh, and you’re right about Michael’s starting sales on Thanksgiving. I had a flyer from them in my mailbox today with a coupon only good if you shop starting at 4 pm on Thanksgiving day. That’s just tacky.